A Thousand Cuts
by Jessica Pendragon
Summary: After returning home from his defeat at Kirkwall, Sebastian begs the Maker for forgiveness. But it's the mortal holding his family's bow that he should fear.


He broke his promise.

Sebastian drops the Vael bow to the ground, his fingers no longer worthy enough to hold it. His gilded armor falls away piece by piece and tells the tale of his defeat with its divots, scratches and tears of blood splattered across the once pristine white. He grips the railing of his balcony as if the whole world is spiraling around him out of control.

He failed.

Light eyes full of burden glance down at his kingdom. He had won it back with vengeance fueling his heart. He had promised them those responsible would pay, filled them with purpose, and he had failed them all. Kirkwall still stood, so much lesser than it had once been, but the damned city was free. How could he face his subjects, face his creator, in such shame?

He was foolish to think the Inquisition would aid his holy quest. With so many of the Chantry within its ranks, Justinia's own Hands in attendance, they should have lead the vanguard in his attack against Kirkwall. But they had rallied against him, Inquisition warriors standing shoulder to shoulder with the guard captain's own. No doubt influenced from Varric and the former knight-commander. Sebastian's attack had no chance against that combined force.

"Maker forgive me," he whispers, head tucking to his chest in penance.

"You're going to have to try harder than that. I barely hear your sincerity and I'm standing right here."

He whirls around to the shadows. His bow emerges first, clutched in the hands of someone he once called friend. He moves to grab for a dagger at his belt, but the bow is notched with an arrow before he can even reach the handle.

"Let's not play which of us is the better rogue, hm? Wouldn't want you to lose twice in a row at something this month."

They face each other, eyes level in height. He once saw more similarities between them but now they are nothing alike. "Hawke."

Hawke dips her head in a mock bow. "Noble Prince Sebastian Vael of Starkhaven. Or is it King Sebastian now?"

"How dare you come here after what you've done!"

The curtain of mischief over her expression pulls back and there is nothing but the cold fury he's seen so many times at her side in battle. _At her side_. Despite his loathing for this woman before him, the thought worries at him.

"What I've done? What _I've_done?" There's something more to the fire in her eyes. There's a black madness gripping the edges that sends his mind spiraling to past hurts. He saw it more than once – it was there in the mirror when his family was slaughtered.

"You attacked Kirkwall, Sebastian! A city full of your friends. Tell me, did you hesitate for one second when you saw Aveline on the other side of the battle? If it came to it, were you willing to spill her blood?"

"I wasn't…I was there for you! You and that murdering mage. But neither of you were there, were you? Run off like cowards from what you've done."

"I left to protect what remained. I left my home to save it and you marched back to raze it to the ground. The people of Kirkwall have suffered enough and you subject them to your misplaced sorrow."

"My w-what?"

Hawke's eyes lose a touch of their harsh shine. "I know her death was a terrible blow to you, Sebastian. I never wanted this to happen. She was a good person. But you attacked her city. What you've done…I am sure she would never approve of your actions."

"Do not even presume to speak for her," he says, every word punctuated with fury. "She is dead because of you!"

He launches himself at Hawke. She releases her hold on the arrow and swings the bow down to block his sharp dagger. Sebastian is a blur of swift motions and practiced precision aimed at the deadliest places. Hawke never attacks as they dance across the room, only deflects his advances as if she can see his mind.

He tries to mask himself in shadow and sink his daggers in the flesh of her back, but she is not fooled. Hawke brings the bow between his legs and he cannot not stop his fall. She slams it against the backs of his hands and he loses hold of his weapons against the pain. A kick sends them away before a knee digs into his back and her swift hands bring the string of the bow around his neck.

Sebastian struggles, but Hawke pulls back in response, making him lift his head or be strangled. Her knee sends shoots of lightning up his spine.

"I told you, you didn't want to play this game," she says.

Sebastian looks towards the door, wondering how his soldiers could have missed the commotion. "Did you kill all my men, too?"

"Sebastian." His name comes out in a whoosh of frustration and growing anger. "Their heads will hurt for a few days, but they're alive. Stop struggling."

He ignores her directions until spots start forming against his eyelids. When his weak attempts to dislodge her finally cease, she slides from his back and removes the sinew from around his throat. She allows him to sit up and cough the air back into his lungs. When he finds her figure in the dark, she's crouched a few feet away like a playful cat.

He wants to glare at her, to answer her accusing eyes with malice of his own, but he avoids her gaze. He doesn't understand it. "Why haven't you killed me, Hawke?"

She sighs and he can't tell if she's impatient or tired. "How did it come to this?" He's not sure if she means this night, this year, seven years ago. He thinks it's all those things and there is no answer for that, or too many to matter. So he says the reason that's most pressing upon his mind.

"You let him go."

She looks away, a streak of pain shaking her shoulders. He watches her struggle with something for a few moments before she brings her eyes back to him. Her whole expression is weighed down, but there's a clarity to her gaze. "I would have done the same for you."

His immediate response is to object, but the harsh words evaporate from his tongue. He thinks of her friends, his friends. They weren't brought together because of some noble quest or epic destiny. They were brought together by the sheer power of _her_. Hawke had been there for them all. And when she had needed him most, where was he?

"You are as guilty by association as I am, Sebastian. We share the blame, but you're the only one that couldn't see that. And I understand. You loved Elthina and you don't want to be responsible for it. But you are. Accept it."

She makes it sound so simple. She's always had a talent for making the worst fights seem insignificant. Sebastian realizes there is truth in her words. He had taken Starkhaven back with a vehemence boiling in his soul, but he did not mount the offensive to Kirkwall only to thwart his growing grief. "I do feel responsible for her death, but that is not the only reason I returned. And if we are going to be truthful, you need to come to terms with what happened as well."

Hawke turns her face away, but he won't let her escape from this. "There can be no hiding from what he did. He killed thousands. There needs to be justice for those people and if that means all of us must be brought low because of it, then so be it. But this cannot stand. You know it, and I suspect even Anders knows it. We need to face judgment and do the right thing."

Hawke laughs, but it is bereft of mirth. "Do you know where I've been? I've been to the Inquisition, I've been to Adamant to face Wardens and demons. I was in the Fade, for Andraste's sake. And here you were attacking _Kirkwall_ like it matters in the face of our extinction and holes in the sky. Scouring the countryside for one person when the fate of everyone is at stake. Don't talk to me about doing the right thing. I'm trying to fix it and you've been making it worse!"

"Did you come here to lecture me?" he yells back.

"I came…I came-" She stands up and he is quick to follow on the balls of his feet, ready for an attack. Hawke turns her back on him and he stills, surprised. One never turns their back to a rogue. He watches her closer as she lowers her head into her hand.

The Hawke that returns to face him is one he's only seen once, when her mother died and there were no quick words or dismissing laughter to cover up her pain. Her face is marred by sorrow. Her shoulders lurch as she fights to keep in a strangled cry even as tears begin to collect in her blue eyes.

"I came to tell you that you can give up your divine quest. Your justice," she spits the word out, "has been executed."

"Hawke, what are you saying?"

"I left him to help Varric and his new Inquisition. I _left_him and, Maker, I haven't said it out loud yet. Anders is dead, Sebastian. I left him and they found him and he's _gone_."

The word smashes through his room, smashes through his bones. It sounds like a seal falling and closing his fate in a wax of his own making. Because he knows. He knows why she's here and why a hundred demons swirl within the center of her eyes.

"Who?" he asks anyways.

She reaches behind her and throws a tattered piece of cloth at his feet. It's hard to see through the blood and gore, but the symbol of his home is etched into the center. He had ordered Anders and Hawke to be brought to Starkhaven alive, but it wouldn't matter if he said that now. Sebastian remembers his harsh words to Hawke when she wouldn't end the mage, but time tempered his verdict. It would be too easy, too quick a sentence, to just let Anders die.

And he's known, even when they were companions and with every demon she slayed, with every merciless mage and blind templar struck down, with every dynasty destroyed, that Hawke was not someone to cross. To be her enemy is one thing, but to be her _purpose_ is something he was smart enough to try and avoid.

Whichever of his soldiers it was, he can see in her eyes that they are all dead, can imagine the tiny pieces she separated them into with her slashing daggers. He's seen her bring down ogres with an easy smile. No one would be able to survive an inferno of Hawke's rage. Sebastian begins to fear, not wonder, why he's still breathing.

There is nothing left of the friend he once knew before him now. Her tears burn away. He realizes she is something new, a creature of ash and fire born from the death of love. Hawke is radiant and wretched and something more than human. She approaches and he doesn't bother moving away. One cannot escape from a heaving volcano when they've made their home at its feet.

"I didn't come to kill you, Sebastian. I came to make you a promise of my own. I am going back to Kirkwall and it will be mine. I will build it up to something far greater than it ever was. I won't do this with fear or threats. I'll make it beautiful with peace and, for the first time in forever, happiness. For generations and generations after this, people will think of Kirkwall as the greatest city that ever existed in Thedas."

She inches nearer and Sebastian feels paralyzed by the quiet cold of her voice. "I will share our riches and glory with every city in the Free Marshes, except Starkhaven. Your people, the world, will begin to wonder why. They will look to you and see something wrong. They will have forgotten what transpired here in the wake of my miraculous ascension. And when I have their unquestioning love and loyalty, when my word becomes law and gospel, when I've made myself a new god in their worshiping eyes…"

He can feel her breath on his lips and in her eyes he sees his future in blazing clarity. "I will swarm over Starkhaven and devour everything it ever was. I'll burn away every piece, every banner, every book and scroll with its rich history and start anew. There will be no stone, no inch of dirt or hair on someone's head that isn't mine and nothing left of yours. I will make your land mine and they will _thank me for it_."

The Champion drops the bow at his feet and he barely hears its clattering. She steps around him, her dry lips just brushing his ear. "And then I won't have to kill you, Sebastian. You'll do it yourself."

Sebastian crashes to his knees with the pressure of his people, his decisions, on his shoulders. He feels her sweep from the room and leave him to hold up the weight alone. He mourns for loss, for fear, for the thousands of cuts she's left on him without ever touching his skin. For friends betrayed and for betraying friends. For the words he wishes he could take back and for oaths shattered.

Because Hawke never makes promises she can't keep.


End file.
